1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for allowing a third party to automatically generate an application which contains content provided by the third party for access, purchase and use by users belonging to a community network.
2. Background of the Invention
The advent of instant electronic communication between multiple users anywhere in the world has spurned a new generation of electronic applications that exploit the benefits of such advancement. One such breakthrough technology, which has no prior related art, has been described in the parent application to the present invention, namely, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/516,921. This parent application, which is incorporated by reference herein, is directed to a method and platform through which application providers can easily and automatically connect to a common platform in order to offer access and use of their applications to a global community of mobile device users through a variety of different mediums, while automatically charging the user for use of the application through the user's billing account with the cellular carrier to which the user subscribes. In this manner, the platform described in the parent application allows an application provider to commercially offer an application to a community of mobile device users without the need for the application provider to have a contractual agreement with any of the mobile carriers to which the mobile device users respectively subscribe. Furthermore, the platform described in the parent application provides application providers a simple and automatic way to register and present their applications for access, purchase and use by the global community by registering the applications in an automatic fashion that eliminates the need for a lengthy registration processing involving multiple layers of people and procedures.
According to the platform and methods described in the parent application, an application provider can write an application pod and then register the pod with the community platform for automatic access to a community of mobile device users via various mobile device carriers. For example, an application provider may design and develop an application pod that allows a user to view current stock prices for selected stocks in which the user is interested. The application provider would then register the completed “stock price” application pod with the community platform, after which the pod would be available to all mobile device users that are members of the community. A mobile device user could then subscribe to use the “stock price” application pod through the community platform, after which the user could access and use the pod to check stock prices from within a typical web browser on a computer or on the user's mobile device. As mentioned above with respect to the parent application, the community platform automatically charges the user for use of (subscription to) the application pod through the user's existing billing account with the cellular carrier to which the user subscribes.
Some third parties may have content, such as a blog, music, video, text, or other digital content, that they wish to offer to users of the community platform. However, many such third parties may not be knowledgeable or capable of developing an application pod through which their content can be delivered to the community platform. Other third parties with content to offer may simply not want to expend the time and resources necessary to develop such an application pod. Accordingly, it is desirable to have a method and/or system which allows a third party to offer their content for purchase and use by users of the community platform without requiring the third party to design, develop and implement an application pod.
Thus, there is a need in the communications are for a more convenient and streamlined technique for introducing an application pod to a community of users without the need or inefficiencies of learning to write the program, code or other necessary structure for the application pod to be effective. Such technique should be easy to use and operate and offer a broader range of opportunity for those who desire to use it.